


Fall to Earth and Run

by Ferith12



Series: Sister Cities [2]
Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Gen, Gotham is kinda evil, i don't know how to tag, rating could be subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:06:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 4,557
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10914930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ferith12/pseuds/Ferith12
Summary: Gotham has her eyes on a circus boy.





	1. Prologue:  Gotham

_ Usually, Gotham hated strangers.She did not like them coming in, with their rules and their expectations and their judgments into her realm of perfect, chaotic order. She did not like them interfering with her own, her crazies and her crooked aristocrats and her poor, downtrodden, long-suffering little ordinary people.She hated government people sticking their noses into her business, disrupting her complex networks of illegal dealings, rooting out her criminals, trying to put them to justice.She hated the tourists and visitors, coddled by other cities all their lives, walking around gawking and not really seeing anything, with their heads full of optimism and no sense. _

_ But the circus was different.  _

_ Haly’s circus was coming to Gotham and she was trembling with anticipation.There was excitement in the air all over Gotham; the circus was the one thing that drew people together, from the street kids that snuck in without paying to the old family elite. _

_ The circus was something new and wonderful to Gotham.It was bright and joyous and spectacular, and unlike the city in so many ways.But it was also out of the ordinary, weird and maybe a little insane, it’s people took pride in being different.Gotham loved that about it, and she loved the cheer and brightness, at least for a little while.  _

_ Haly’s was special to Gotham.It’s people were fascinating to her, she almost saw the circus as an extension of herself.Sometimes she would snag someone from its almost-too-happy-to-be-real community and make them her own.Ten years ago she had taken a young roustabout with a sharp mind and wicked sense of humor and made him hers.Made him insane and ugly and magnificent.  _

_ Now Haly’s had a child.The eight year old son of the show’s star performers was already a master of the trapeze.He wasn’t famous, but he should have been.He talented, brilliant and inquisitive, and so, so young.  _

_ Oh, what a glorious monster she would make of him. _


	2. Chapter 2

_First, clip his wings.  Flying birds are pretty, but Gotham likes her pretty things to be twisted._

* * *

 

 

_Falling_

Dick's world was made of change, of people hired on to Haley's circus and people leaving, of places visited and places left behind, Dick didn't measure his life in time, in years and months and days, but in a thousand different people, places and events, in befores and afters.

Now there is only one before, and he is after.

It's too bright in Gotham's juvenile detention center.  The fluorescent lights glare greenish white, buzzing on the edge of hearing.  Even at night they don't turn off all the way.  It's too bright, but it feels too dark.  Sharp shadows and no sunlight and grimy, grayish concrete.  It feels like the world is spinning, not with speed and and wind in your face and the bright rush of adrenaline, but sluggish and thick like water, like a whirlpool sucking down and down until you don't know what down is anymore, until you don't remember up.

A thing to know about Juvie: nobody cares.

The guards hate their jobs.  They flip between being afraid of the inmates and abusing them.  Curfew is not followed.  No rules are followed.  Nobody cares enough.

The food is terrible, but it is food.  Those who aren't quick enough or tough enough don't get any.  Nobody cares about this either.

There is a boy who is grieving his family, there is a boy who has had his whole world ripped from under him and is lost and alone.  There are many boys like this.  Nobody cares.

Except:

Dick Grayson is pretty and tiny and curled in on himself to hide.  He's miserable and weak-looking and doesn't speak a word of english.  Dick Grayson is pretty.  There are people who care about this.

Once, in the circus, there was a woman named Maria from Bludhaven who spoke Spanish, but not like they did in Spain.  She had seen six-year-old Dick Grayson, flying half naked in front of crowds of people.  Saw how he would slip away from his parents and anyone else trying to watch him and wander off on his own.  How he was far, far too friendly and far, far too careless.  "Heres what you do if someone tries to molest you, kid" she said.

When the older boy touched him, Dick  _moved._

Dick had never had to fight before.  He had learned to read the signs, known who it was okay to hug and who to run from.  But there was nowhere to run.  Dick had never fought before, but he had been trained, drilled over and over til every action was instinct by an old Bludhaven girl who knew how to survive better than anything else.  Dick was strong and quick from a lifetime of flying, and he knew what he was doing in a fight.

The boy never stood a chance.

 

_Screams_

A thing to know: the gangs rule in juvie.

Nobody cares if you're raped or killed or starve to death.  Not if you're alone.  The gangs rule in juvie, if there's structure it's thanks to them.  

Kids know better than to mess with Dick Grayson now, or they mostly do.  But Dick is still small and alone and he's lost the element of surprise.

The gangs circle him like sharks.  Good fighters are a treasure and power in juvie.  Everyone claims the small boy who is clever and fast and possibly cruel.

To be in a gang is to be as close to safe as it you can be in juvie, to be in a gang, especially the right one, is to have power.  To be in a gang is to be told who to fight and who to kill.  To be in a gang is to be controlled.

Dick will not be controlled.

Dick Grayson is eight years old.  The average age of a kid in Juvie is thirteen.  What Dick Grayson intends to do is impossible.

But then, isn't that true of everything he does?

Dick Grayson will not join a gang.  Neither will he be powerless.

The key to being respected is to look as if nothing can hurt you.  The key is to act like you're already superior.  Everything is an act and Dick has always been a great actor.

Dick Graysons does not cry any more, he does not hide, he does  _not_ let himself look small.  Dick stands straight and tall and smiles like it's performance night while on the inside he's screaming.

 

_Blood_

A thing that must be understood: children are like wild animals.

Every pack must prove itself.

So must a lone wolf.

Dick Grayson fights.  He fights for his place at mealtime.  He fights the gangs that claim his skills and the gang members that claim his body.  He fights and fights and he learns.  He learns how to win.  He learns how to kill and doesn't.  He learns how to hurt and does.

A one man gang must be respected.  He must not be intimidated.  The gangs threaten him and he laughs in their faces.  A one man gang must be respected.  He must be intimidating.  They attack and attack again and Dick pretends like it doesn't even hurt, moves with casual grace when his cracked ribs flash with pain.  In return he deals out pain.  He tortures his enemies until they fear him.

Dick Grayson learns to be feral and hard edged and sharp and unforgiving.  He learns to live with blood under his fingernails.  And he pretends at night that he doesn't cry and dream of splattered blood pooling on the ground.

 

_I'm sorry.  It does get better eventually._

Fact: once you enter juvie you don't get out again.  There are always charges that can be filed against you for what you do in prison.  Nobody wants people from Juvie out in society.  If you reach eighteen you just get transferred.

Dick Grayson fights and Dick Grayson learns.  Before long it feels natural, like the only course of reality.  Dick Grayson's life is before and after, and Dick Grayson is after.  Three months and eleven days in after and before is a faded dream.

Fact: Gotham always makes exceptions for her favorites.

 


	3. Interlude

_Once there was a young Roustabout from Haly's that Gotham took a fancy to.  He spent about a month in juvie when he was seventeen, and when he got out he was not quite the Joker, but he was nearly there._


	4. Chapter 4

_Place the bird in a golden cage.  It deserves the very best, after all._

* * *

 

In the back of a limousine a small boy sat very, very still.

In the front of a limousine two men sat very, very straight.

A limousine drove on a road in Gotham, and inside the limousine were three pairs of very blue eyes.

You can learn a lot about a person from the eyes.

These blue eyes were all so very different.

One pair of eyes were old, calm, serenely scanning the road.  They were sharp with tension.

One pair of eyes was hard, determined, looking firmly straight ahead, except when they glanced nervously down or to the side, unsure.

One pair of eyes were piercing, piercingly bright, glancing frantically yet calculated between a black head of hair and a mostly bald one, fearful, ferocious, feral.

The small boy sat very, very still.   The old man moved his hands smoothly over the steering wheel.  The other man swallowed, shifted, movements most people would not notice.  The other two were not most people.

The man in the passenger seat had tried at first lamely to start conversation.  (“I don’t know if you remember me, Dick.  My name is Bruce.”  “You’ll be staying with us now.  Would you like that?”  “I’ve made up your room for you.  It’s got a huge bed, and the walls are painted blue.  Blue’s your favorite color, isn’t it?)  The man in passenger seat was not used to initiating conversation.  He was not used to talking to a child.  He was not used to saying the sorts of things he thought the boy should be told.  The boy stared silently with dead eyes shining with unquenchable vitality seeming to see everything and nothing.

A black limousine rolled down a Gotham street.  Inside the limousine were six blue eyes and silence.

 

 

 

On a hill on the edge of Gotham resided a stately mansion.  Inside the mansion stood three people

A man, tall, thin, balding, gray haired, composure and distance.

A man, tall, muscular, big, perfectly combed black hair, power and awkwardness.

A boy, short, slender, tiny, wild black hair, disorientation and confidence.

The big man (Bruce) said:  “This will be your home now.  Do you understand, Dick?”

The boy shrugged, a quick twitch of his shoulders.  He did not know the word “home” in English.  Even if he did he would not understand.  Home was people.  People were dead.

On the ceiling hung a bright, huge chandelier.  From where he stood Dick could see three ways to climb up to it.

“You can ask me if you need anything,” the big man said.  Dick did not answer, and he knew better than to believe.

The chandelier twinkled high above, playful, inviting, safe.  The boy came very close to smiling.

The older man said: “Shall I show you to your room, then, Master Dick?”

It was not a question with an answer.   The boy nodded, quick, sharp, decisive, anyway.

A lonely mansion stood on a bright green hill in wealthy Gotham.  Inside the mansion were two men, a boy and a chandelier.


	5. Aside

_The butler of Wayne Manor dusted._

_The old man who is a butler and was once an actor and a thousand other forgotten (deeply ingrained, well remembered) things but is most importantly of all a care taker to a man who was once a boy, dusted._

_Master Wayne had brought home a little boy out of guilt and sympathy.He had brought home a child who did not speak and did not laugh and only smiled to show his teeth, who watched and watched and was not easily seen._

_It was wrong to think of a child as one would a bomb._

_Stubbornly, the butler dusted as though the prickling at the back of his neck did not warn him of the gaze of cold (dangerous) blue eyes._


	6. Aside 2

_Sometimes Bruce wondered if the boy in his care now was truly the same one that he’d seen at the circus almost four months ago._

  
_It could hardly have been said that Bruce had known that boy, the one with bright eyes and brilliant smile and boundless energy.  He had, after all, only seen him for a few moments._

  
_But that little boy had worn his soul on his sleeve, proudly, blindingly, and Bruce had felt as though he knew him, as though he understood what this child meant._

  
_And then, in the dark, when everything came crashing down, literally.  And the boy stood there alone in that puddle of blood amidst the chaos, Bruce had looked at him, at the tiny child in too much shock to cry.  And it was like they were soulmates, twin hearts broken too young.  And Bruce reached out, he had to.  And when he said, “It really does get better eventually” he had meant it, because he was determined to make it better.  Somehow._

  
_But now the boy was like some sort of twisted wraith of himself.  There was still light in his eyes, but it was strange, manic, secret and closed.  He still seemed to almost to pulse with energy, but it was potential energy now, tight and controlled like a snake coiled and ready to strike.  Where once he drew attention like a torch in a world of moths, now he crept shadowlike seeking out every nook and cranny and hiding spot in the Manor._

  
_Bruce tried to reach out.  He tried to reach the boy, to make an impact, to elicit some sort of response. He tried to make conversation in English and in French and in Spanish, he even learned a little Romani, but though he obviously understood every word, he remained utterly silent._

  
_Bruce knew, he knew that he himself had not destroyed Dick Grayson.  It had been the Child Protective Services and social workers who had thought it was a good idea to send an innocent eight year old into Gotham’s cruelest torture ground.  It had been the managers and guards and fellow inmates of Juvie who had broken and beaten him into hardness and seemingly stolen his life and hope and soul.   In the end it had been Gotham herself that had destroyed him._

  
_(But Batman was Gotham’s protector, so in the end, didn’t it come to the same thing?)_


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so, so, so, so sorry.  
> It's, like really short too.  
> I have no excuses.

_He'll learn to like it in time._   


* * *

__

One month and eleven days after Dick was moved to the giant house with the strange, silent people found him hiding under a table at a big fancy party.

Yes, he was hiding under a table.

No, he was not proud of it.

No, he was not getting out just yet.

Earlier in the day Wayne had asked if Dick would mind attending this gala.  He'd made it sound optional.  He had also implied that maybe Dick couldn't handle attending.  Dick preferred to have Wayne where he could see him.  He did not want to risk saying no in case this was some sort of trap.  But most of all, Dick did not want anyone to think he couldn't  _handle_  a party.  He had been performing death defying acts in front of huge crowds of people for as long as he could remember.  He had spent three months in Gotham Juvie and lived to tell about it (or not tell.  He still preferred to remain silent.  Always listening and never speaking gave him an edge, and speaking with an accent could be seen as a weakness).  He could handle a party just fine.  His pride would not be content with his simply hiding in his room all night.

He was not handling it.

Once, Before, he was comfortable around people.  Once he could have smiled at the gossipers, once he would have loved to be at the center of the attention, even if they did view him as some sort of exotic pet.

Now, though, now every person was a threat.  Now there were so many, so many he hadn’t observed, so many he could not predict.

He hated it.

He was afraid.

People talked all around and he tried to hear what they were saying, desperately needed to know what was going on.  It was all predictable, of course, and harmless.  A lot of them seemed to think that Wayne had taken him for sex.  He hadn’t.  Dick was certain now that he hadn’t.  It was a relief, of course, but at the same time, that idea at least had the advantage of making sense.

Everyone stared at him.  He should be used to that but he had gotten out of the habit.  Everyone stared at him as if he were some sort of strange creature.  Some foreign object, taken and admired for the taking.  This was what he must be to Wayne, an exotic pet.

People had always looked at him like that, him and his family.  But then some people, most people were just amazed at their amazingness.  And anyway, they were flying so it did not matter.

Now no one knew what he once was and didn’t care, and now he was not flying.  The stares had burned into him.  He had felt exposed and alone and helpless and improbably ashamed.

And so he was hiding.

And not handling anything at all.

So Dick hid under the table, curled in on himself, hugging his knees. It made him think of the first days of Juvie, when everything was dark and horrible and terrifying, when everything was new and raw and _hurt_. It made him think of fal-

He couldn’t do this.  He couldn’t do it.  He couldn’t-

He was not a pet. He would not be caged beneath a table, staring out beneath the cloth at cruel, rude, wealthy feet and ankles.

He was Robin.  He would fly.

  



	8. Chapter 8

The backpack is new.  It is red and blue and it has a superman logo on the front.

If Dick were smarter, maybe he would not have chosen a backpack with such bright colors, maybe he would not have chosen something that says "Please steal me".  But Dick is only an eight year old boy (even if he is almost nine now and a survivor of Juvie) and he loves bright colors and he loves Superman.  There are not many lovely things in his life.  He takes what he can.

Inside the backpack are five bottles of water and a box of cereal and a small blanket.  The cereal got smushed and crushed, but that's okay, it's still food.

On his bed sits Zitka, the stuffed Elephant.  Dick does not know how Wayne got her or why he bothered.  She is all he has left from Before.  She is not in the backpack because she is not coming with him.

If Dick took Zitka with him she might get lost or hurt.  Dick can't take care of her on the streets, the superman backpack will have to be enough.

Zitka stares at him with her wide button eyes.  She cannot understand.

Dick walks back to the bed and hugs her tight until she is all hard and twisted, squished against him.

"I love you," he whispers,  "I love you, but you need to stay here, you'll be safe."

 _Wait for me_ , he wants to say.  But he doesn't, because it wouldn't be fair.  He has already lied.  He does not know if Wayne will keep her safe, just that she will be less safe if she comes with him.

Slowly he unsquishes her and tucks her into the too big, too soft bed.  She looks very small and very alone.

Dick wipes the tears from his eyes, picks up the backpack, and climbs out the window. He does not look back.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so... that took longer than I expected.  
> I also planned for this to have actual plot/action. Oops  
> Hope it isn't too boring.

_Run away, little bird.  You can't run far_

* * *

The streets of Gotham are like this: dark and twisty and dirty.   These are the bowels of Gotham, her filthy intestines and silent, secret, internal organs, decrepit but strong.

The buildings pile up, jammed together, stone and steel and glass, gargoyles clawing at modern architecture.  There is no building code here.  The buildings do not topple because Gotham does not want them to.  Yet.

The dawn is smoggy  and red-orange-yellow.  Everything else is black.  It is ugly.  It is beautiful.

There are millions of people in this city, sleeping, stirring, clambering through the streets and houses.  The night isn't over yet, the day is beginning.  

Of the millions of people in the great city of Gotham, many are children.  Of those children, a few, too many, live on the streets.  They sleep in alleys, they huddle in the shelter of dumpsters, they take shelter in (hopefully friendly) stairwells.  Some have stayed up all night, with the theory that it is best to be alert to dangers.  Some are waking up.  Some will sleep a while longer.  Some will not wake up at all.

A child, a boy with bright blue eyes and black hair that is dirty and in need of cutting, has been awake for nearly half an hour.  He sits on the head of a gargoyle near the top of one of the tallest buildings in sight.  How did he get up there?  That is one of Gotham's mysteries.  (No. it is a mystery of the Flying Graysons.  But she will claim it, as she has claimed them.)

The boy sits on his perch, eyes bright.  The sunrise is before him, all the world is below.

Gotham is ugly.  It is beautiful.

The boy wears a dirty old backpack that might once have been red.  If you look, you can barely see a superman logo peering out of the grime.  Inside the backpack is a box half full of cereal for emergencies, and five water bottles.  Two and a half are filled with water from the drinking fountain by the library.  

The boy is not happy, but he is not unhappy either.

 He jumps.

For a moment he is falling.  But then he catches himself on a fire escape and launches into the air again.

He is flying.

He runs across rooftops and leaps from gargoyles and he laughs.  Because he is alive.  Because he can.  Because the sun is rising.  Because Gotham is ugly and cruel but she is also magnificent.

In Dick Grayson's life there are two purposes: to survive, and to find the man who killed his parents.  And so he runs.  He runs toward the gangs and mob bosses for information, and runs away from them for survival.

But in between it all he is free, and he has learned to laugh again.

Five months ago a broken little boy climbed out of a window and walked for hours along the side of a lonely on a night he was told that Wayne would be away.  The little boy was a survivor, and so he has survived.  When his parents-- Before, he was eight and he was helpless.  Then he learned to be strong.  Now he is nine, and nine is almost ten.

It has been a long time.  He is half-way to being an adult. 

There is a bakery in a side-alley, yellow lights in over-hung shadows, a warm little cheer in the dark.  It is a front for something.  Dick is not entirely sure what.  The kitchen door is unlocked, and he slips in silently.  The kitchen is loud and cheerful and warm.  Somebody's grandmother is very good at baking.  This is her little kingdom, her grandchildren are the mafia of some sort, they are the drug runners or the money launderers, the are the chieftains of darkness, but in obscuring them, she is an empress of good food and comfort and kindness.  She smiles at him, and he smiles back.

He makes himself busy washing dishes. Pleasant and silent and unobtrusive.  He listens.

Silence is like a super-power.  Silence and understanding far more languages than any little boy could be expected to have a right to.  It is almost as good as the ability to read minds.

Hours later, a little boy enters an alley. In his arms are baked goods, warm and sweet and filling, and his head is filled with information.

He climbs up again, to the grimy roof-tops.  The sky is a lightish sort of grey.  It will not rain today.  

The morning is for free time.  He explores the hiding places, the nooks and secrets of Gotham, he looks for beautiful things and for curiosities.  Like the play of all wild creatures, this will help him in times of danger. It is always best to know your environment better than your opponent.  Dick has explored up and down Gotham.  When he has to run, he is never cornered.

For lunch, Dick makes himself useful at some other front for some other criminal organization.  Fronts are gold mines, of course.  They don't have to make money themselves, and somebody's grandmother can afford to be kind to small silent boys with wide pitiful eyes.

Dick is a wraith, flitting silent across rooftops and through alleys.  And everywhere he listens.

He learned who killed his parents in Juvie:  a name, Tony Zucco.   Now he knows everything.  His base of operations.  His plans.  Where he will be tomorrow night and the night after.  He does not know what he will do with this knowledge.

He wants to run, right now.  He wants to kill the man who murdered his parents.  But Zucco has money and goons and guns, and all Dick has are his fists and his teeth and his rage.

It wouldn't help anything to get himself killed.

When his parents...

When his parents fell.  There was a man.  His name was Jim.  He was a policeman and he was kind.  Dick wants to rip Tony Zucco's throat out, but he is not just an eight year old boy anymore.  Juvie and the streets have taught him to survive.

Dick has a plan.  Or at least a hope.  Now all that remains is to get up the courage to walk into Gotham City Precinct and ask Jim to put Zucco in jail.  And hope that he can run away before they hand him over to Child Protective Services again.

 


	10. Interlude 2

_Once there was a man who came to Gotham.  He was not hers, he was an outsider. But he came came to Gotham and he looked around him and he cared.  Then all alone this man stood before all of Gotham and defied her._

_What can one man do in defiance of an ancient queen? Not much.  But he would not be discouraged.  His ambitions were big but not extraordinary.  Despite all of Gotham's demands and expectations, Jim Gordon was determined to be a decent man._

_He allied himself with the Batman, Gotham's dark knight, her pride. Together they planned to change her forever.  Gotham refused to be changed, but she would not stop them._


End file.
